


the persistence of

by ashley_in_the_know



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29309568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashley_in_the_know/pseuds/ashley_in_the_know
Summary: When a spell gone awry robs her of several years worth of memories, Vex has to decide if the process of recovering them is worth the pain of reliving some of her darkest moments.
Relationships: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia, Scanlan Shorthalt/Pike Trickfoot, Vex'ahlia & Vox Machina
Comments: 20
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

Vex wakes with a pounding headache and the nagging sensation that something isn’t quite right. She’s on hard packed earth instead of her nice, soft bed, and she can hear her friends’ voices, all some measure of concerned. She opens her eyes with a groan, wincing at the too bright sunlight.

Pike is right there, her small hand on Vex’s cheek. The furrow between her brows relaxes when she sees Vex’s eyes open. “Hey,” she says softly. “How are you feeling?”

Vex tries to sit up, gasping when her vision swims with the movement. She lies back down, fighting off a wave of nausea. “Fuck.”

Pike hums sympathetically. “Yeah, you hit your head pretty hard.” The throbbing in her skull recedes somewhat as Pike pumps one healing spell into her, and then another. “Just rest for now. I’ll be back to check on you in a little while.”

After a few minutes, she becomes aware of a presence at her side. A hand strokes her cheek, and she risks opening her eyes again, expecting her brother. Instead it’s Percy, staring down at her with a mix of trepidation and relief that feels wildly out of place. It’s almost like he’s... No, that’s absurd. She dismisses the thought before it can even finish.

And yet. There’s something _off_ about him, about everything, that she can’t quite place. A hazy, dreamlike quality that’s not quite deja vu. Maybe Pike’s right. Maybe she just hit her head _really_ hard.

She gives him the winningest smile she can manage while feeling like she got hit with a tree. “Can you help me sit up, darling? I promise I’m not going to throw up on you.”

Percy chuckles. “Because I’ve never heard _that_ before.”

She frowns. She certainly doesn’t _recall_ having ever thrown up on Percy. She’s sure Scanlan and Vax would never let her hear the end of it if she had. 

Still, he helps her sit up, far more _gentle_ than she’s come to expect from Percy. He stays by her side, watching her with an expression she can only describe as _fond._ His hand comes up to stroke her cheek again.

“I thought we agreed we were going to _stop_ doing this,” he teases. Before Vex can ask what he means, he leans in and kisses her.

What. The. Fuck.

It’s not a _bad_ kiss, all things considered. It’s soft and sweet, little more than a press of his lips against hers. But it’s also incredibly _intimate_ , somehow. He kisses her like he knows her. So she does the only thing she can think of when he pulls away.

She slaps him. Hard.

He looks confused more than anything. A little hurt, a little betrayed. “Vex, wha-”

“What the _hell,_ Percy?” She shoves him for good measure. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

There’s a low whistle, and Vex turns to see Grog and Scanlan watching them.

Scanlan is clearly trying to hold back laughter. “What did you _do,_ de Rolo?”

“Yeah,” Grog chimes in. “We could hear that slap from the other side of the clearing.”

Percy shrugs. “I...don’t know?” he says weakly.

Vex is about to protest that he knows _exactly_ what he did when Pike and Keyleth join them. “What’s going on, guys?” Keyleth asks. “We heard yelling.”

“We seem to have interrupted a bit of a lovers quarrel,” Scanlan says, smirking.

“Vex slapped Percy,” Grog adds.

Keyleth frowns. “Oh.” She turns to Vex. “Why?”

Vex sighs, her cheeks flaming. “He kissed me.”

They’re suddenly all looking at her like she’s grown a second head. “And that’s a bad thing?” Pike asks slowly.

“Well, yeah,” she says. “You don’t just _kiss_ someone without asking them first.”

That only seems to confuse them more. “Not even if you’re _married?”_ Scanlan asks.

Vex rolls her eyes. “Well, alright, but that’s different,” she says. “Percy and I aren’t married.”

A few jaws drop at that. Percy’s frozen in place, his eyes wide. “Oh dear.”

That nagging feeling of something being Very Wrong returns with full force. She shrinks back, curling in on herself. “Why are you all acting so weird? What the _fuck_ is going on?” It suddenly hits her what, or rather _who_ , has been missing this entire time. “Where’s my brother?”

There’s a low muttered _fuck_ , she can’t tell who from. Percy buries his face in his hands. Keyleth turns away from her entirely.

“Vex?” Pike asks, approaching her slowly. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

It’s harder than she thinks it should be, but she finally settles on an answer. “Allura,” she says. “Um, she came to the Keep last night to give us the papers we’d need to get into Kraghammer. So we could go find her friend, Kima.”

A terrifying silence falls over the group, broken only by Grog’s muttered, “Oh shit.”

Pike takes a deep breath, grasps both of her hands. “Vex, um, I don’t know how to say this, but...”

“But what?” Vex asks. “Pike, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Pike admits. “But, going into Kraghammer to find Lady Kima? Vex, we did that five years ago.”


	2. Chapter 2

Percy holds his breath, waiting for Vex to react to Pike’s statement. He likes to think he knows his wife well enough to guess at her potential reaction. He’s expecting confusion, shock, fear. A demand for answers. Possibly denial.

He’s not expecting her to laugh.

Vex holds Pike’s gaze for a good thirty seconds before she snorts and dissolves into helpless laughter. “Alright, that’s a pretty good one,” she says, pausing to wipe away tears. “You really had me going for a minute there.” She takes a breath to compose herself. “Did Vax put you up to this?”

“This isn’t a prank, Vex,” Pike says softly.

“Oh, come _on,”_ Vex says, her tone shifting from humor to exasperation. “You don’t honestly expect me to _believe_ that, do you?”

Scanlan shifts uncomfortably. “Do you really think we’d lie to you about something like this?”

Her response is immediate. “Yes.”

“Okay, fair,” he relents. “This does sound like something I might have pulled back in the day. But do you really believe that Pike would go along with it? Or Keyleth, or Percy?”

“Hey, what about me?” Grog protests.

“You would,” they all chorus.

Vex goes quiet, her eyes flicking from person to person. Percy can see the change in her expression, in her posture as she takes them all in. He sees the moment where she shifts from annoyed confidence to genuine fear.

“Prove it,” she finally says, her voice catching.

Keyleth frowns. “Excuse me?”

“Prove it,” Vex repeats. “If you’re really not fucking with me, tell me something that you’ve learned about me in the past five years. Something that you couldn’t possibly have learned from my brother.”

“You’ve showed me your titties,” Grog offers before anyone can stop him.

Vex’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm. Percy and Scanlan audibly sigh, while Pike facepalms.

“That’s not...really what she meant, Grog,” Keyleth stutters.

“It’s the truth, though,” he says. “And it ain’t like Vax could-”

“Okay, technically, you’re right,” Keyleth interrupts. “I mean, at this point, I think we’ve all seen them in some capacity.”

“I beg your fucking pardon,” Vex says, and Percy might have laughed if he weren’t completely freaking out.

“Not in, like, a creepy way or anything,” Keyleth defends. “You’re just naked. A lot. Sometimes. They’re really nice?” She turns to Percy. “Help me.”

He closes his eyes and thinks. Remembers a conversation had in bed one night, shortly after she’d earned her title of Grand Mistress. The way she couldn’t face him until after she’d told her tale. The tears she’d tried to pretend weren’t falling.

“Trinket,” he says, and her eyes snap to him, her gaze intense. “You once told me the _full_ story of how you acquired Trinket.”

She swallows hard, her eyes darting around the rest of their friends, all of whom are watching him intently. If they’ve heard any of this story, it’s bits and pieces. He suspects he’s the only person she’s ever told the whole truth, that there are details she chose to hide even from Vax.

“Leaving out the bits that you asked me to _never_ speak of,” he starts, “you were kidnapped by poachers. Trinket and his mother were also prisoners. You couldn’t save her, so you took him to raise as your own.”

His heart breaks just a little more when she turns away from him, a single tear falling down her cheek. She gives a tight nod.

Scanlan clears his throat after a minute. “Well, now that we’re acknowledging that this _has_ happened.” He looks to Vex for confirmation, who nods again, sniffling. “I think the big question here is _how_ did this happen? And how do we fix it?”

“I’d like to know that, myself,” Vex agrees, deceptively calm. “I’m guessing I got knocked out, somehow, since I woke up on the ground, but obviously I don’t remember how that happened.”

“We were getting ready to all go home after spending the weekend in Emon together,” Pike says. “We were saying our goodbyes when we got ambushed. It was a pretty easy fight, we scared most of them off pretty fast. But their mage hit you with a spell that I didn’t recognize. It sent you flying, and you hit a tree and were out cold.”

“Did _anyone_ recognize the spell?” Percy asks. “Keyleth? Scanlan?”

Keyleth shakes her head, and Scanlan shrugs. “It couldhave been _Modify Memory_?” the gnome guesses. “I don’t know, I’m the _worst_ person to ask about this stuff.”

“We could just ask the mage,” Keyleth suggests. “Can’t you speak with the dead, Pike?”

“Well, I _could,”_ Pike says, “if Grog hadn’t turned the guy’s head into putty.”

“Sorry.”

“Regardless, Pikey, you were able to fix Grog and Percy when they lost their memories of the Feywild,” Scanlan says. “Couldn’t you just do...whatever you did then?”

Percy nods. “That’s right. _Greater Restoration_ , wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Pike agrees. “But I kind of used up all of my high level spells for today. Keyleth can do it though, right?”

Keyleth winces. “I...don’t have _Greater Restoration_ prepared today?” She huffs a sigh at their disbelieving looks. “I didn’t think I’d need it, okay!”

Pike sighs. “I guess we just all go to Whitestone, and try it in the morning.” She turns to Vex. “Is that okay?”

Vex gives her a weak smile. “I guess it has to be.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Um. You still haven’t said.” She sighs. “Where’s Vax?”

There’s an unspoken agreement in the moment that their eyes all meet. _Lie._

“He’s not with us right now,” Keyleth says carefully.

Vex frowns. “Why not?”

“He’s working for his goddess at the moment,” Scanlan says. “He became a follower of the Raven Queen a few years ago, and then her champion.”

“He’s on a vision quest,” Pike adds. “He had this dream, about a week ago, and he just...left. Said it was a solo mission. And we don’t really have any way to contact him.”

Vex presses her fingers to her temples. “My brother. Is the champion of a goddess?” She lets out a shaky breath. “I think I need a minute. Or ten.”

They retreat to the other side of the clearing, and Keyleth’s hand is on Percy’s arm the moment they’re out of earshot.

“Hey, how are you doing right now?”

He sighs. “I am having about three separate panic attacks, but other than that...” He gestures at Vex helplessly. “What do I do, Keyleth? How do I help her?”

She shrugs. “What are you going to tell her about, you know, the two of you?”

“How do I not tell her everything?” he asks. “She’ll see it all once we get to Whitestone. The house, and her title, and _gods_ Vesper.” He scrubs at his face. “I don’t want to overwhelm her, she barely trusts what we’re saying as it is, but I’m not going to let her hurt our daughter because she doesn’t remember that she exists.”

Keyleth tries to smile. “I know this sucks, but we’ll figure this out. We always do, right?”

They all sit in awkward silence for a few minutes, occasionally glancing over at Vex, who hasn’t moved. Eventually the silence is broken by Vex’s voice, tentatively coming through the earrings.

“Um, Percy, if you can hear me, I think you and I need to talk?”

* * *

She watches Percy freeze in place for a moment before he stands. Pike says something that her lip reading doesn’t catch, and he nods. He doesn’t look at her as he crosses the clearing, his eyes fixated on a spot just above her head. He doesn’t look at her until he’s sitting down in front of her, his expression unreadable.

“Hi,” she says softly. “I wanted to start by saying I’m sorry for slapping you.”

He shakes his head. “Vex’ahlia, you don’t...given the context of the situation, you have nothing to apologize for.”

She shrugs. “I’m still sorry.” She looks down at her hands. “I also have some questions that I think only you can really answer.”

“Ask away.”

Vex sighs. “Are we...married?” she starts. “I only ask because you _did_ kiss me, and everyone looked at me funny when I said that we weren’t, and I’m wearing this ring-”

He takes her left hand in his, rubs his thumb over her knuckles. “Yes,” he confirms. “Yes, you and I are married.”

“How long?”

He thinks for a moment. “Oh gods,” he mutters. “Not quite four years.”

“Oh.” Fuck, that’s longer than she was expecting. “Do we. Um.” She chews on her bottom lip. “Dowehaveanychildren?”

He squeezes the hand he’s holding, nods. She gasps, feels as though all of the breath has been punched out of her.

“A little girl,” he offers after a moment. “Vesper Elaina, after my sister and your mother.”

She doesn’t try to stop the tears from falling. “How old?”

“Three,” he says with a small smile. “Just barely.”

“Fuck.” She wipes away tears with her free hand. “Pike mentioned a place. Whitestone? Is that...”

Percy nods. “That would be home,” he says. “The de Rolo family, _my_ family, has ruled there for generations. Still do, in a fashion.” He smiles again. “You’re technically a Lady.”

“Huh.” She sighs. “One more question.” He nods. “Has Grog _really_ seen my tits?”

He almost laughs. “You have flashed him on more than one occasion.”

She snorts. “Yeah, that does sound like something I would do.”

She loses track of how long they sit together, her hand in his, neither of them looking at the other. Their bubble is only broken when Keyleth approaches, twisting her hands.

“Hey guys,” she says. “Um, we were just talking about how we should probably get going soon. It’s getting late, which means it’s probably really late in Whitestone, and Cass will probably get worried if you guys aren’t home soon.”

“My sister,” Percy mouths when Vex glances at him. “You’re probably right,” he says to Keyleth. He stands, offering Vex a hand.

The world tilts and her vision blurs as Percy helps her to her feet. She’s back on her knees in an instant, and this time she actually does vomit. “I think,” she manages, breathing deep, “I think I might have a concussion.”

“All the more reason for us to get you home and resting,” Percy says, rubbing her back. One arm goes around her waist, and she realizes his intent as he asks, “May I?”

She nods, keeps her eyes closed as he gathers her in his arms and stands. It helps with the nausea, but the pounding headache has returned, and she thinks she may have to ask Pike for another heal soon.

Vex hears, rather than sees, everyone gather around them. She briefly wonders exactly how they’re going to get where they’re going, but before she can ask, there’s a tearing sound just in front of them. She opens her eyes to see Keyleth opening a portal in one of the larger trees. There’s a city on the other side, and she doesn’t have time to ask before Percy is hurrying through.

It’s cooler on the other side of the portal, the sun is setting. They’ve apparently crossed the continent in mere seconds.

“What the fuck was that?” Vex asks weakly.

“Ohh, right,” Keyleth says, “I forgot you wouldn’t know about that. That’s how we travel for the most part. As long as I know of a tree in any given place, I can get us there.” She pats the trunk of the enormous tree they just stepped out of. “Hi, Sun Tree.”

“She always does that,” Percy murmurs in her ear. She feels his chest move with a sigh as she takes in the city square around her. “Welcome to Whitestone.”


	3. Chapter 3

Whitestone shouldn’t feel familiar to her. Percy says it’s their home, sure, but she’s never stepped foot in this city, had never even _heard_ of it before today. The streets, the buildings, the surrounding forest and distant mountains are completely foreign to her. And yet...

The square around them is thankfully empty, save for some unnaturally lifelike statues that, after a moment of intense focus, Vex realizes are...them. Vox Machina. She studies her own stone face, and it’s like looking in a broken mirror. The features are undeniably hers, but the expression is one of such aching sadness that she has to turn away. She hadn't considered until now that there might be things from the past five years that she wouldn't _want_ to remember.

She feels Percy tense when she buries her face in his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“My head is killing me.” It’s not a total lie. Her skull _is_ still throbbing. And the eerie deja vu of this place isn’t likely to help her maintain any semblance of balance.

“Oh, god, of course.” He lowers them both to the ground, her back supported by the giant tree. “Pike, do you have any healing spells left?”

“I’ve still got my big one,” Keyleth offers. Vex winces as a hand touches a sensitive spot on the back of her head, but the pain is quickly replaced by a flood of healing magic. She opens her eyes to Keyleth’s smiling face. “Better?”

Vex nods, grateful that the motion doesn’t trigger any pain or nausea. “Loads,” she says, squeezing Keyleth’s hand. “Thank you.”

“So, what’s the plan for tonight?” Scanlan asks, turning to Percy. “I’m assuming you’re not going to make us pay for rooms?”

“Right, um...” Percy thinks for a minute, runs a hand through his hair. “I was thinking I’d take Vex to the manor for the night, have the lot of you stay in your rooms at the castle.” He turns to Vex. “If that’s alright with you, dear?”

She eyes him warily. “Is there a reason why we can’t all sleep in the same place?”

He hesitates. “I suppose not, if that will make you more comfortable. If you’d rather stay at the castle, I don’t mind. But, Vesper is at the manor, and as I haven’t seen her in nearly a week, that is where I will be tonight.”

“Of course,” she murmurs. “Is the manor not big enough for everyone?”

“No, it is,” he says. “But, trying to get an excitable toddler to go to bed when nearly all of her favorite people are in the house?” He chuckles. “I’d have more luck trying to wrestle a bear.”

She gasps at that last word. “Trinket! Where is he?” she asks, looking around frantically. “We didn’t leave him behind, did we?”

Percy smiles gently. “He’s at the manor with Vesper and her nanny. I can send him up to the castle for you if you’d like?”

She thinks it over, finally shaking her head. “I want to come home with you.” She swallows hard. “And if it’s really been almost a week that we’ve been gone, I don’t want Vesper to think that I’ve abandoned her, or something awful like that. And I do want to meet her, I’m just-” She looks up into the foliage, blinking back tears. “This is just _really_ overwhelming, and I don’t want to do it alone.”

Percy is quiet for a minute. “Would it help if one person came with us? Maybe Pike or Keyleth,” he suggests. “That way it’s not just you and me, but it’s not a madhouse either.”

Vex nods.

“I can come,” Keyleth offers. “That way Grog and Scanlan aren’t left totally unsupervised.”

Percy turns to Pike. “Can you fill Cassandra in?” he asks.

“Of course.” Pike gives Vex a tight hug before she sets off after Grog and Scanlan. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay? I promise you we’ll fix this.”

* * *

That uneasy feeling nags Vex through the entire walk to the manor. Her feet seem to remember this path, jumping over or sidestepping holes in the cobbled street that would trip her up. Percy raises an eyebrow at her after the third time this happens, and she shrugs. “Muscle memory?”

“Must be,” he says, the look in his eyes growing a little more hopeful.

“Tell me about Vesper?” she asks, hoping to distract them both.

Percy fully smiles for the first time since she woke up. “What would you like to know?”

“Anything. Everything.” She sighs. “I don’t want to feel like a stranger to her.”

By the time Percy is pointing out the manor to her, he and Keyleth have filled her in on everything from Vesper’s favorite stuffed animal (a wolf, named Woofers) to a myriad of nicknames (Nugget, Cub, Little Bug). Of course, none of this prepares her for actually seeing her daughter for the first time.

They’re outside of the manor, playing in the twilight; Trinket, a dwarf woman who must be the nanny, Rika, and Vesper. Vex freezes in the street, her breath catching in her throat. If she had any doubts left that this was real, they’re now dispelled.

She feels Percy’s hand on her back. “Are you ready?”

She shakes her head, tears spilling over. “She’s so beautiful, Percy.”

“Well, she does take after her mother.” Her heart does a wicked little flip in her chest. “Sorry,” he mutters. “Too much, I know.”

“You don’t have to apologize, darling,” she says, taking his hand. “It was sweet. C’mon.” She steels herself and starts walking to the front gate.

Trinket spots them first, bellowing a greeting. Vesper squeals when she sees them, and runs for the gate as fast as her little legs will carry her.

“Mama, mama!” She launches herself at Vex, who just manages to catch her and _not_ send them both tumbling to the ground. Everything Percy told her leaves in that instant. Vesper is a comforting, _familiar_ weight in her arms, and she’s fighting back tears because she doesn’t remember her.

Still, she’s nothing if not a good actress. “Hi, sweetheart.” She peppers kisses across the little girl’s face, earning a peal of giggles. “I missed you so much.”

She gets a wet kiss on the cheek in return. “Missed you too, Mama.” She starts wiggling in Vex’s grasp. “Lemme go, I catch fireflies now.”

Percy scoops her up before she can dart across the yard. “Actually, little miss, I think it’s time for your bath.”

“Daddy, noooooooo.”

He taps her on the nose, ignoring her pout. “If you take a bath now, Aunt Kiki can read you an extra story before bedtime.”

Vex barely registers what he says to Rika, or what the dwarf says to her as she leaves the manor grounds. The distant sound of the front door shutting behind Percy snaps something inside of her, and she doubles over, sobbing.

Keyleth stays by her side, rubbing her back, whispering soothing nonsense. Trinket allows her to wrap her arms around his neck and soak his fur with her tears. There’s a horrible yearning in her chest that she can’t rid herself of, no matter how hard she cries. Not that she wants to get rid of it, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?

She loses track of time, but the sun hasn’t fully set when she heaves a deep sigh and wipes the last of her tears.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Keyleth asks, still rubbing her back.

“I feel like an imposter,” she says after a minute. “This is...everything I’ve ever wanted, Keyleth. A home, a family. Someone who loves me. Not even Vax knows how badly I've wanted this. And it’s all right here in front of me, and everyone’s telling me that it’s mine.”

“But it doesn’t feel like it is,” Keyleth guesses.

She sniffles, a few stray tears falling. “Is it really my life if I don’t remember building it?” she asks. “It feels like I snuck in and stole it from someone who actually deserves it.”

“Of course it’s your life,” Keyleth says. “This isn't like one of those stupid books where someone has an evil twin that legitimately tries to steal their life. You’re still _you_ , Vex. This is _your_ house. Percy is _your_ husband. Vesper is _your_ daughter.”

“And if none of this works, and I never get those memories back, what then?”

Keyleth pauses for a moment. “That won’t change the way we feel about you, Vex. You’ll still be our friend, our sister. No one’s going to stop loving you.” She shakes her head. “It’s like Pike said, though, we’ll figure this out. We’ll fix this.”

Vex turns towards the house, scratches Trinket’s ear absentmindedly. “I wish I could believe you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Percy spends the evening in a state of quiet panic. He's trying to strike the delicate balance between taking care of Vex when she's obviously unwell and not overwhelming her already fragile mental state. It's more difficult than he was expecting. He doesn't actually _witness_ her vomit again, but she excuses herself rather quickly while putting Vesper to bed and returns a short while later looking pale and miserable.

She retreats to their bedroom not long after, and it takes everything in him not to join her. He wants desperately to hold her through the night, feel the rise and fall of her chest, be lulled to sleep by her soft and steady breathing. The force with which she'd hit the tree earlier had been truly frightening. He'd thought, for a split second, that he'd lost her. Again.

_But you have lost her, haven't you?_

He does his best to ignore it. The cruel little voice in his head that sounds like Orthax and Ripley and the worst possible version of himself.

_Does she even_ love _you like this? If you can't fix this, will she even want to stay?_

Percy is not a religious man by any means, but tonight he prays, to any god that might be listening. He even considers invoking the contract with Ipkesh, far longer and more seriously than he will ever admit if asked, only dismissing the idea because he knows Vex would never allow it.

He gives up on the idea of sleep after tossing and turning for several hours. It's due to this insomnia that he's able to hear soft footsteps coming down the stairs, and the opening and closing of the front door. He weighs his options for nearly a quarter of an hour before he pulls on his dressing gown and goes outside.

Percy stops short when he reaches the garden, briefly wondering if he's fallen asleep and is now dreaming. Either that, or the gods have decided to answer his prayers in the most fucked up way imaginable. Because the cloaked, hooded figure that's sitting in the grass, gently stroking the large raven that's perched on their knee is almost certainly...

"Vax?"

The figure looks up, the hood falls back, and his wife is staring up at him with a bemused grin.

"Still can't tell us apart after all these years?" she teases.

He laughs and joins her on the ground. The raven hops off of her knee, and comes to peck at a loose thread on his pajama pants. "In my defense, I did come outside in the middle of the night to a mysterious, cloaked figure brooding in my garden."

That gets a genuine laugh out of her. "Alright, fair." She plays with the hem of the cloak. "I'm pretty sure this is his cloak, too. Though, I can't fathom why it would be balled up in the very back of my wardrobe."

Percy knows why. It's the same reason there's only one mirror in the entire house. Why ravens come to visit, and snowdrops grow here year round. It's the one truth he'll keep from her, the one lie he'll allow himself to tell, even if it's only for one day.

He shrugs. "Couldn't sleep?" he asks, hoping she won't notice the quick change of subject.

Vex shakes her head. "Weird dreams," she says.

"Nightmares?"

She shakes her head. "Not really, just...strange. No names or faces, just feelings. But weird feelings that didn't seem to fit where I was."

"How so?" he asks.

"Like...being in Syngorn, at my father's house, but feeling happy. Proud." She thinks for a moment. "Or being at our keep and feeling like...like the world was ending. Just consumed with grief and dread. It was all so..."

"Unsettling?"

She nods. "Yeah." She studies him. "What about you? What's on your mind?"

He snorts. "Oh, you know. Everything."

She winces, ducks her head. "Sorry."

He's kicking himself for being so flippant. "Vex'ahlia." He reaches out for her hand, waits for her to look at him. "You have nothing to apologize for. You didn't ask for this."

"No, I know," she says. "I still kinda feel like shit."

He squeezes her hand. "With any luck, we'll have this fixed tomorrow."

"Can I ask you something?" He nods. "This is probably going to sound so selfish and shitty, but will you sleep with me? Not...like that. Just pretend that it's any other night and things aren't totally fucked."

He almost says no, should probably say no. They're both scared and vulnerable, and would probably benefit from being able to break down privately. But then he remembers her saying earlier that she didn't want to be alone. And honestly, the idea of him being able to deny her anything is ludicrous.

"Whatever you need."


End file.
